Fog Cutter , with rum, brandy, gin, sherry, and various juices, is a popular faux-Polynesian punch invented by “Trader Vic” Bergeron by 1940, notable for its unusual mixture of three base spirits and because it was the first “tiki” drink served in a bespoke ceramic mug designed specifically for it (initiating a trend still followed by tiki bars today). Its name is derived from a generic American term for a morning drink (“eye-opener” is another) that dates back at least to the 1840s.
Vic first printed the recipe in his 1946 Book of Food and Drink. “You can get pretty stinking on these, no fooling,” wrote Vic, who only served two to a customer at his Trader Vic’s restaurants. By the late 1940s he’d scaled down the Fog Cutter to a lighter, electrically blended version, which he rechristened the Samoan Fog Cutter (to make one, cut down the rum to 45 ml and the brandy to 15 ml, then blend everything except sherry with one cup crushed ice; serve as below).
By the mid-1950s, hundreds of tiki-themed restaurants and bars had appropriated the Fog Cutter. Even non-tiki cocktail menus featured it, often modified to fit a restaurant’s theme; Seattle’s Norselander, to take one example, swapped aquavit for the sherry and called the drink a Viking Fog Cutter.
Recipe: Combine 60 ml each lemon juice and light Puerto Rican rum, 30 ml each orange juice and brandy, and 15 ml each orgeat syrup and gin, shake with ice and pour unstrained into a tall glass or Fog Cutter mug. Top with a sherry float and garnish with mint.
See also Bergeron, Victor “Trader Vic”; punch; and tiki.
Bergeron, Victor J. Trader Vic’s Bartender’s Guide, Revised. New York: Doubleday, 1972.
Bergeron, Victor J. Trader Vic’s Book of Food and Drink. New York: Doubleday, 1946.
By: Jeff Berry